The U.S.S.R., like many other countries
that embrace a variety of peoples and cul
tures, seeks a balance between national unity
and preservation of minorities. The Tatar
peoples have their own national theater,
opera, and ballet, and read Tatar-language
newspapers. The Russian-language schools
in the Tatar Autonomous Republic are bi
lingual. Tatars learn their own language in
1,500 ten-year schools.
With advancing modernization in cities
like Kazan, the two cultures steadily grow
closer. But Mr. Pismin Fedor, administrator
of a Christian church in Kazan, expressed
some doubts about the future. "There were
dozens of active churches here," he told me,
"but the trend is more and more away from
religion. If that happens, it will be a shame.
"We are one of the largest ethnic minorities
in the Soviet Union-Volga Tatars along the
middle course of the river, Kasimov Tatars,
Mishar Tatars, and smaller groups, five
million altogether. Before the Revolution,
most were Moslem but many were Christian,
depending upon whom their ancestors first
encountered. We are all descended from the
warriors of the Golden Horde, who came
here in the 13th century. We were ruled by a
khan until the 16th century; the khan's fam
ily ended up as part of the Russian nobility,
and that nobility ceased to be."
Father Sounds an Age-old Theme
As the Yuri Dolgorukiy headed downriver
on the eight-day passage from Kazan to Vol
gograd, I watched the banks slip by and
thought of two Kazan students who had been
raised on the river and had gone on to shake
the world-novelist Leo Tolstoy and revolu
tionary V. I. Lenin. I passed the thought along
to a Russian gentleman who had joined me at
the rail. He shook his head in the way of
parents since time immemorial.
"I wish my own boy would turn out to be a
Tolstoy or a Lenin, but I'm worried about
him. He left school. He sings in a jazz band in
Leningrad. His hair is that long. He has a
beard. But he is 22, and what can you do?
Someday he will regret not having followed
a stable, acceptable profession."
Thus social and cultural currents common
to the rest of the world affect Russia as well.
Exchanges are welcomed. My cruise ship,
built in East Germany, held about 150 French
and 90 Russian tourists. We spent hours
watching the Olympic Games telecast by
Eurovision from Munich, where the Russian
teams were doing well. When the games were
over, so was the outside programming.
We stopped one afternoon at a sandy beach
near the Kuybyshev power station, and a
group of French passengers went swimming.
One did not return. The ship delayed its de
parture for an hour, two hours. At dark, Rus
sian divers went into the river. It was about
noon on the following day when I heard the
soft weeping of a woman and saw the divers
taking the drowned man from the cold Volga.
"We Care for One Another"
"My people have been diving the whole
night to find him," said Galya Smirnova. An
attractive redhead, Galya managed the ship's
boutique, but it was a summer job only, taken
to polish up her French and English before
she returned to her studies in Gorkiy.
"Foreigners are not allowed in Gorkiy," she
said, "because of the military and industrial
installations there. So I seldom see them. I like
them, as a rule. But sometimes not."
She motioned to a group of tourists frolick
ing in the same Volga waters that had claimed
their companion.
"They do not seem concerned," she said. "I
will tell you something. We Russians care for
one another. There have been many good
changes in Russia, but there are still short
ages. Millions of new apartments have been
built, and even though the quality may not be
as high as we would wish, that is an achieve
ment. Many frustrations and disappoint
ments, but we go on and try to succeed be
cause we care for one another. My beloved
people, I could never leave them."
Silenced by the strength of her sudden emo
tion, we remained at the rail. It is a moot
point, I thought, whether the French make
too little of death or the Russians too much.
I tried to change the subject.
"I have noticed fires burning in the fields."
"There has been no rain all summer," Galya
replied. "The crops are failing. This will be a
bad year. In czarist times, many thousands
would have died, but we will make it through."
Humble Classroom Now a Shrine
The writer Maxim Gorky once described
the Volga waters as being conscious of their
invincible power. Certain it is that the land of
the Volga gave birth to one of this century's
most sweeping political currents. On the farm
lands and in the hamlets of this wide region,
National Geographic, May 1973
586